Bend But Don't Break
by seriousish
Summary: Cara is never sure what she wants from Denna. What she needs.
1. Chapter 1

Cara didn't know why she kept coming here. It was a painful memory, after all. Or it should've been. A time when she was a child, unable to defend herself. Not yet strong, not yet Mord'Sith. Still such a fool as to believe her father would never betray her.

But the memory seeped into her nonetheless. It comforted her, even when she didn't want it to, didn't need it. Herself, short and small, playing with Grace, slightly less tiny. A rare memory unconnected with her treacherous family; he'd been away a few days on business, so it was just her and Grace and her mother. Nothing to be tainted by the traitor. Just the sun and the river and the tall grass that rippled against their skin as they ran through it, the animals and the wooden toys and the village boys who chased them and the chickens in the coop that they chased and the birds singing and the leaves falling and the river's cool water and…

Cara was drawn out of her remembrance slowly, like poison from a wound. Not shocked out of it, like the Agiels had done when she'd tried to block out her training. No, she was lured. Pulled away by the teasing pain of Denna's fingers on her body.

As she hung from her chains, her nakedness only hidden by the dim light, Denna smiled up at her. Enjoying the irony that Cara could only look down at her because her manacles had been hoisted so high.

"Where did you go?" Denna asked, in a voice that was sickly sweet compared to the rough tones of any other Sister of the Agiel.

"Anywhere I couldn't see your face."

Smiling, Denna took a step inward. She always got close. Didn't believe in the distance between an interrogator and her prey. It was what made her the best. "You don't go to Lord Rahl. I don't feel your devotion. And Lord Rahl is all a Mord'Sith should require."

Cara smiled back at her. Denna was her superior, a mistress where she was a novice, but this was no mere subordination. Denna had pulled her from her normal duties, stripped her bare, trussed her up like she was trying to break her all over again. It'd been hours since then—hours she could've spent doing the Lord Rahl's bidding. To Cara, it was obvious what was happening. Denna was intimidated by her rapid ascent. Her youth. Her beauty. For now, it was her right to punish Cara for being better than her. But soon enough, Denna would learn her true place.

They smiled at each other and from their faces, could've been any two lovers on a walk, a picnic, a bed. Not even their eyes gave away the game. Denna unholstered her Agiel and Cara's smile twitched into a rictus.

"Stick me with that thing and get it over with," she sneered.

"Oh, you want this?" Denna held the Agiel up to Cara's lips like she was offering her a piece of sweet candy. "You're a good Mord'Sith, I'll give you that. You've learned to make pain your ally. You understand it better than the sheep we herd. You can find where it wraps back into pleasure and twist it away from all trace of suffering. Even to the point of desiring the Agiel. Already, you know enough to wipe away the line between pain and pleasure. For all the suffering you've endured, all you can think of is how much more it would take to make you come." Denna pulled the Agiel away and replaced it with something far more deadly: her lips at Cara's ear. "Is it any wonder I won't allow you to have it?"

"Then what do you want? To keep me hanging her forever? If you want to kill me, be done with it already. I'd hate to keep you from your important duties." Cara smirked in triumph, played her trump card. "Unless, of course, Darken Rahl would not approve."

Even Denna's smile could slip. "Do not dare to think you know the mind of Lord Rahl."

"Then do you? How do you serve the Lord Rahl by wearing out our lovely chains?"

Smiling again, Denna pinched Cara's cheek. "By making his servants of stronger mettle." She went to the collection every Mord'Sith had—the trophies of every victim they'd trained. Denna's was impressive; enough weapons to fill an armory. She selected a sleek dagger. It was so well-made it could've served a Confessor.

She walked right up to Cara—her steps straight and even—and the knife went to Cara's throat. She didn't dally with brandishing it, flashing the blade in the light, gesturing with it. None of the teachings. She just escalated right to the brink, letting Cara know where the playing field lay. It made Cara feel respected. Denna wouldn't be wasting time with the lighter intimidation.

As delicately as a seamstress threading a needle, Denna touched the knifepoint to Cara's throat. She drew the dagger across her skin; the sides were so sharp that they cut the stray hairs hanging in front of Cara's face. A white line formed on Cara's already pale skin. She could feel it burn atop her deprived body. Bloodletting was preferable to being bloodless.

Cara spoke knowing each word she loosed could cut herself open against the blade. "If you think slitting my throat can make me come, then go ahead." She was surprised how hushed her voice came out.

The dagger stopped in the hollow of Cara's clavicle, dipping into her skin when she breathed. Cara felt a blood drop's worth of pain, like a lover's lips brushing against hers. Not quite a kiss… "You still don't understand." The dagger moved up. It raised Cara's chin, making her bare her throat to Denna's animal gaze. "The power of the Darken Rahl flows through the Mord'Sith. Not just in our Agiels, but in our very souls. His right to rule extends through us. It gives us the authority to enforce his will. It flows down through our ranks, from myself even to one such as you. If you do not serve me, you do not serve Lord Rahl."

Cara felt herself dipped back into the memory. For a moment, she felt the sun on her skin, the wind in her hair, Grace's hand in her own. No matter how hard she tried, in her mind, she could not make Darken Rahl a god. Some small piece of her—a fingernail, a lock of hair—could not accept that he had a right to conquest in the same way that the day was bright and the night was dark. But she could believe in a safer world for Grace, a world Darken Rahl would bring about. That was what made him holy. Not his birth, but his mission.

It was sacrilege, but it was the only way her life made sense. The only way her dreams and her awake could agree.

"If you wish me to serve you, cut me loose. I'll make you feel things that will have you believing in the Good Spirits."

"No," Denna said emphatically. She drew the dagger away so abruptly as to make a tiny nick in Cara's jawline. It was so unexpected that Cara winced in pain, even as she luxuriated in the overwarm contrast of the blood dripping down her skin. "Now I think you refuse to understand. All you can think of is the pleasure such a thing would bring you. The tiniest bit of control you'd have if allowed to touch me. But you are not in control, and my pleasure is the only thing that matters. And it pleases me to break you."

Cara could've laughed, but that would've been too much disrespect even for her. Still, she let Denna read her feelings in how her tongue curled out to lick the blood from her chin. Mockingly sexual. "I don't break easily."

"Don't you worry about that." The knife was touched to Cara's nipple, its chill hardening the bud against Cara's will; then circling the tiny stone, the blood on the tip painting her skin warmly. It made her nipple stingingly erect. "We have all night."

By the end, Cara would feel she'd been played like a harp. First, Denna put her arm over Cara's shoulder, holding the knife so the point was at the base of Cara's skull. It kept Cara very still as Denna moved in with her lips and her teeth and her wicked, wicked tongue. The kiss was surprisingly soft, sweet enough to make Cara gag, and like a starving animal, Cara's body opened up for the false affection. Her lips spread to let Denna's tongue in, to gain a foothold on Cara's flesh. Cara could no more fight it than she could stop herself from sweating.

"I know this is how Dahlia kisses you," Denna said softly, her voice breathless and soothing at the same time. "I know this is how you kiss her. Not how you kiss Triana—with her you're such a Mord'Sith, domineering, powerful. But like this… you're weak."

Cara clamped her teeth shut as Denna went down, her kisses now landing on Cara's left breast as the knife slid along Cara's right. Then she started to suck, the hot pressure on Cara's breast making both her nipples rise, even as the point of the dagger was touched to the nipple that sprung into open air. Cara felt a moan rise, overwhelm her, break free. The cold, the danger, the wetness, the warmth… It was doing things to her.

For long minutes they stayed like that, Denna idly running the knife over Cara's breast like a child drawing on a scrap of parchment, while her mouth sucked as amicably at Cara's other teat as a milking calf. It was slow and patient enough to seep through Cara's defenses. Her well-trained body broke in exactly the way Denna chipped at it, flames being stoked with no warmth—no battle, no prisoner to break, just the simple insistence of Denna and Cara replied in turn.

When Denna took the knife away, left Cara's left nipple slick and hot to engulf the other one in the horrible efficiency of her mouth, Cara actually spoke. "Oh, fuck." What's worse, Denna didn't seize on it at all. She simply looked up at Cara, her eyes as smug and superior as ever—only now they both knew it was justified.

The knife went around Cara's body like it had a mind of its own, pressing into the meat of her buttocks, still girlishly soft, not the hardened muscle of the flesh elsewhere. The tip sunk in deep, dimpling the flesh before even beginning to breach it, and Denna raised an eyebrow as if in surprise. As if her own body weren't kept pleasurable and soft to the touch. Neither of them were the kind of Mord'Sith to be kept whipcord thin and tough as gristle. Maybe that was Denna's point.

With a few last licks at the nipple she'd so briefly pleasured, Denna moved her head between Cara's cleavage, putting her ear to Cara's heart like she was cuddling a pet. Then, exerting the slightest pressure, her knife left Cara a reminder for every time she sat down, whenever she tightened her leathers. Cara tried to speak again; "Oh fuck, oh fuuuck…" but held the words inside her tightly clenched jaw.

Denna knew just how to cut her, a shallow enough cut that she didn't fear for her life, not even for a moment, but deep enough that Cara could quickly feel blood trickling down to her leg. The pain was exquisite, but nothing compared to the Agiel. An airy nothing. Just enough to make Cara's body flare up, fill to the brink. It was nearly as good as pleasure. No, better. Anyone could enjoy a kiss, a caress, a squeeze, but only a Sister of the Agiel could enjoy this. Cara felt the blood that trickled between her buttocks and onto her thighs mix with another copious fluid.

She was close, every inch the slow knife took pushing her closer. Her nipples stung, her lips went dry, her eyes closed. Her orgasm wasn't a promise anymore. She could feel its shape, its contours. She knew her body would be wracked by this slow destruction, the same way a candle took hours to burn but left only melted wax.

The knife stopped though. Just before she achieved her climax, leaving a horizontal line from her hip to the inner curve of her cheek. Cara cried out in frustrated anticipation. She knew her mouth would speak without her, knew to be ready for it, and yet it did anyway. Denna heard her call "No!" the moment the knife was gone.

"Don't want me to stop, Cara? Were you enjoying that?" Denna nuzzled her face against Cara's racing heart. "Were you enjoying me?"

"Just worried that knife will slip and you'll hurt yourself." Even as she spoke, the sweat dripping into Cara's mouth put the lie to her words. It was one she maintained regardless. "I hear that happens a lot to silly little girls."

The knife went to Cara's face. Cara readied herself for a new scar, but it didn't come. Instead, the knife touched her lips. She couldn't help it; didn't know if she should have. She opened her mouth. The blade went inside. She knew Denna's will. It aligned with hers. She closed her lips on the flat of the knife and sucked her own blood away. It tasted hot.

The knife pulled away and went down Cara's body, wiping her own saliva along her chest. It dropped between her legs. The flat was touched to Cara's core. The cold steel against the wetness Cara knew was waiting for it. An electric shock pulled Cara all the way back, almost to the edge, but Denna was too good at her job to allow that. The knife went away again, came back to Cara's lips. Her mouth opened. She tasted her own juices.

When Denna smiled at her, Cara felt her own mouth twitch. She looked desperately to the ventilation hole high in the ceiling—the light coming through it the only clue as to the time of day. It was considerably dimmer than when they'd started. They must've spent at least half an hour with Denna starving Cara's body of sensation, filling it up by degree, then slowly draining it once more. They weren't done yet.

As the sunlight faded totally, the knife explored every inch of Cara's body. Sometimes it made one of Denna's signature cuts, shallow and teasing, and Denna would seem to spend hours on each one like it was a treasured possession, licking up the blood, sardonically kissing it better, until all that was left was dried blood and a heated ache. Cara's pleasure ebbed and flowed, but it never truly diminished. She always found herself back on the brink, gasping for breath, her lungs filling with the air for a scream that never came. Denna never gave her reason to.

It seemed to last for days, though Cara knew it was 'merely' hours. The cycle was relentless. Build-up, then denial. Sometimes Denna would let her pleasure die away for a moment or two, then instantly bring her back to the edge. Other times, she would go hours without inflicting a cut, merely holding the knife to Cara's skin until Cara was mentally petitioning it like a distant god, to let her give herself to it.

But every time, Denna knew the last possible instant to stop. To leave Cara panting with desire, her mouth forming the words to the plea she wouldn't make. But the worst part was that she knew every denied orgasm was the best she'd ever had, better even than the one before would've been. Every time it felt better, her limits went further, her need for release became even more desperate.

Until finally she was in a sort of dream state, insensate to Denna's taunting coos, only aware of the knife as it cut or refused to cut. Dozens of scarlet lines clothed Cara's body, each its own insistent pressure. Her skin gleamed with sweat and her chapped lips seemed permanently open with gasping need. Her eyes, both wide open and hooded with the night's exertions, didn't even blink as the rising sun dripped into the torture chamber.

Denna didn't even seem winded as she washed her blade in Cara's juices, now flowing down to her knees, and licked it clean. "It's going to feel so good, Cara. When you finally submit to me. When you let me bring you to climax. Please, won't you let me? I just want you to feel good, Cara. Don't you want to feel good?"

Cara's jaw worked stiffly for a moment, like a broken puppet, and somehow the word "yes" came out.

"What was that?" Denna asked, licking the other side of the blade.

"Make me come," Cara said dreamily, as if she were talking in her sleep.

"I know what you were asking for. That's just not how you ask for it."

Cara shook, a tremor that broke her skin into goosepimples and rumpled her sweat-damp hair over her face. Almost hidden behind a golden veil, she licked her lips just enough to wet them and let her mouth take on an unfamiliar shape. "Please… Mistress Denna… please make me come?"

"Yes. Cara. Yes, I think so." Denna set the knife aside. The tiny rattle of it against the tabletop was the sweetest and most terrible sound Cara had ever heard. "Give us a kiss, little sister, and I'll give you one."

Cara didn't—she just opened her mouth and let her tongue respond to Denna's as it wanted to—but that was enough for the Mord'Sith. Denna rolled the chain, hoisting Cara up until her cunt was before Denna's eyes. The inner thighs and lower belly untouched, Denna not allowing Cara the smallest stimulation down there. When Denna kissed her core, it was like a monsoon on a desert. Cara clamped her jaw shut, gritted her teeth, but it made no difference. She came. She screamed as she came. She announced her submission to the world and she did it at the top of her lungs.

"Yes, yes, Denna." It felt good. It was weak and submissive and needing and she loved every moment of it, every second that it took for her orgasm to build past the point of no return and the hours it seemed to take to actually have its way with her and then the minutes she spent alone with her own pleasure, shaking as if with the sound of Denna's name.

She hated that it felt so good.

Cara came back to herself slowly, realizing entirely too late the smile of pure satisfaction on her face. The cuts Denna had put on her like candle-marks throbbed to fill her entire body with satiation. They weighed her down with satisfaction. The smallest motion, the lightest breath returned delicious pain to her. She could feel every inch of her punished skin. She basked in how alive she was, delivered from the sensory imprisonment Denna had devised for her.

A seemingly awed silence filled the room as Denna lowered her back down, letting her feet touch the ground, take her weight so that relief crackled through her body, burning her aches and pains so hot that she felt she could die of pleasure.

"You came for me," Denna said. "You came for your mistress. Never forget that."

Cara could not.

Denna was good. Even better than Cara had given her credit for. She didn't press the assault, but gave Cara a silent eternity to wallow in her shame and secret enjoyment. And yet she didn't offer Cara the relief of withdrawing. She stayed right beside Cara, their bodies' fleeting contact a constant pressure, and breathed in the mixture of Cara's feelings. The loathing and the gratitude wrestling for dominion.

Finally, Denna moved, the smooth gesture rippling her flesh against Cara's and seeming to instantly return Cara to the deprived lust she'd been suffering in. She unclipped the scabbard from her hip and slipped the dagger into it, its bloody length now encased in leather. "Tell me the truth and I'll give this to you. You can feel it inside you."

Cara took a ragged breath, let it out. She wanted that. Her body had been trained to want that. The knife, in all its glory, going deep inside her but without killing her, without even hurting her. It would truly wring out all the anticipation that her body was drowning in.

She would take the offer. And Denna knew it.

"What do we say?" Denna asked gently. There was no need for mockery. The words were insult enough.

"Thank you, mistress," Cara muttered.

"Now," Denna said, "where do you go? Where have you always gone, when the pain is too much?"

"The pain is never too much!" Cara snapped angrily, but saw Denna pull the knife a few inches from its scabbard. Bared steel didn't unnerve, but the thought of going back to Denna's sensuous torment… "I go to my sister. One of the people the Lord Rahl keeps safe."

"This is insufficient," Denna needled, driving the knife home in its scabbard with a thud that sounded very loud to Cara's ears. "We do not concern ourselves with the rabble of D'Hara. If Lord Rahl needed a thousand thousand of them dead for no other reason than his mood, it would be to the world's benefit."

"You think I don't know that? You think I doubt?"

Denna pursed her lips, as if considering her words, then casually pushed the handle of the knife into Cara. Its grooves teased Cara even as they passed through her opening, and she was coming long before she recognized the feeling of being filled. That, too, was torture.

"Your Agiel-sisters are all the justification you need," Denna told Cara, speaking directly into the soft whimper of Cara's mouth. "You are no longer allowed to think of your old life. It is dead to you. Instead, you will think of me." Cara felt the guard of the blade bump against her. Denna ground it into her clit. The only pain Cara felt was knowing she was subordinate to Mistress Denna. "You've taken the notice of Lord Rahl. Soon, you will serve him as only a select few do. The pain will be glorious, but even the strongest cannot brace themselves for coupling with a god. So, in your mind, you will be with me. Say this."

"I…" When Cara blinked, she could see the familiar mossy banks of her childhood play. Now with a cancer of red leather growing upon it. "I will be with you."

"Why?"

"Because you bested me." Cara's voice was a hoarse rasp. It was dishonorable to admit this, but more dishonorable still to try to deny that Denna had overpowered her. Not even in combat, where such a thing could be dismissed as simple strength of arms. But sexually, Denna had overwhelmed her. Owned her. It was not only dishonorable to deny, it was impossible. "You bested me, in every way… and I loved it."

Cara had enjoyed sweeter, almost loving couplings with Dahlia and had been equally as frenzied and wild with Triana, but neither of them had made her climax as Denna. The memory of it would be salve in the face of death itself, much less whatever Darken Rahl had planned.

If only Cara could forgive the bitch for having the audacity to dominate her.

And for having the audacity to show mercy; something reserved for the broken. Denna left Cara bound, and before she could even think of escape, Dahlia and Triana were sent in to free her. To see her reduced to nothing more than—a woman. Not even the lowest of Mord'Sith, not then. They fed her, bathed her, clothed her, and when the time was right, allowed Cara to take them, as long as she desired, as many times as she wanted, one at a time, both at once, then pairing up with Dahlia to properly discipline Triana for imagined sins. But even the two of them couldn't reduce Triana to anywhere near the state Cara had been found in.

From then on, the sight of Denna would bring to mind in Cara the thought of a dog sensing its master. Her head would tilt, her eyes would dart, a part of her wanted to know if Denna wanted anything of her—anything that would merit a reward such as the one she'd known before.

That was the true torture. As much as Cara came to hate Denna, she could never hate the way Denna had made her come.


	2. Chapter 2

Ever since watching Mistress Nathair die—being glad her sister was dead, an emotion unthinkable even a minute before it had happened—Cara had felt her foundation cracked. There was guilt there. Her life, one she would've chosen a thousand times over, was based on a lie, and as much as she could not regret her fate, her acceptance of it had been irrevocably damaged. All the people she'd hurt, all the orders she'd carried out—it was all fruit from a strange forest. No way to tell what was poisoned and what was good.

She didn't know what to do with this weakness. She could not suborn it in Richard Rahl's will, as reluctant as he was to accept her to begin with, and so it festered. She didn't know how to fight it. She didn't know how to surrender to it. Cara merely suffered it, like a chronic illness. It came and went without her consent.

The brothel brought her fully back to herself. She couldn't rightly feel the will to dominate that was the Mord'Sith, not when her prey were victims as much as her. There would always be an anguish there. But not with Denna. Seeing her after so many years, Cara felt the need to prove her supremacy. No guilt. No conflict. No indecision. Just a contest of wills between equals, a way to prove herself without the maddening anxiety nestled at the core of her.

It was easy to find Denna's chambers. She barely had to slap around more than one of the madame's whores. Maybe they knew enough to fear a Mord'Sith, or maybe Denna wanted her there. Cara found her combing her hair upon a settee, not even needing a mirror to know how to perfect it. She cocked her head to the side, conceding she'd sensed Cara's presence, but didn't otherwise acknowledge her for the long moments Cara waited in her doorway. Enjoying the fire of her rage as it was stroked hotter and hotter.

"Rethinking my offer?" Denna asked finally. "If you wouldn't like a few of my girls, perhaps you'd like to try some of my clients? They're not Mord'Sith—who is?—but they can be very open-minded."

"Speak when spoken to," Cara rebutted her, and dropped a few bronze marks on the ground. Not much more than Richard had paid for a grapefruit from a vendor that morning.

"That's all you can afford?" Denna said, mock-saddened.

"That's all you're worth. Stand up."

Denna obeyed, her spine straightening beneath the continents of skin exposed by her backless dress. There was no point in further talk. No more waiting. Cara grabbed Denna's arm and twisted it behind her back, pushed her against the wall so hard that she hit it with a physical smack. Cara bunched her hand in the skirt of Denna's dress so hard she wished for a moment she could feel the fabric through her leather glove. Perhaps she'd take a souvenir. She ripped away as much of the material as she could, the tear exposing Denna right below the base of her spine, letting Cara see the pale half-moons of her ass under the new frayed black hem.

She put her hand on the back of Denna's thigh, hoping the taste of the cold leather to Denna made up for what she was missing out on. This wasn't about pleasure, though. It was about power. Cara brought her hand up, squeezed Denna's ass hard enough to feel her warmth, even through the glove. Denna didn't make a sound.

Invulnerable in her red leathers, Cara could only imagine how the rough stone she was jamming Denna against felt upon her body. She pressed Denna harder, crushing the air from her lungs, but when her other hand circled Denna's face and jerked it around, the woman wore an insouciant smirk. Cara wanted to erase that hateful thing plastered upon her perfect face. Smash the teeth in. Break the nose. Paint it all in blood. She headbutted Denna, lightly, for her, was satisfied to see a trickle of blood from Denna's nose. Her lips parted as the crimson dripped over it, and Cara thought of a new way to kill Denna's smile. Wrenching Denna's head back, she kissed the whore on her copper-tinged mouth.

Denna moaned into the kiss, but to Cara's ears it was patronizing. The reaction of a cloistered virgin, not a veteran Mord'Sith. Cara fisted her hand in Denna's unbound hair and wrenched her head back harder, drove her tongue in deeper. She wouldn't be satisfied until Denna's lips were bruised and swollen, pregnant with pain; every word from her mouth reminding her that Cara had been there.

More than that. Cara wanted all of her. Every inch of her marked and claimed, covered in red as surely as the leather once had. Occupied territory for all to see, all Denna's whores, all her clients, even Richard Rahl. She fixed her lips to Denna's neck and sucked hard, still not able to rip out the noise she wanted from where it was lodged in Denna's throat, but feeling Denna stiffen nonetheless.

Cara let go of Denna's arm, keeping it pinned between their bodies by taking a step closer, and instead reached out Denna to grab one of the breasts cruelly squeezed against the wall. Her fingers tightened roughly. She could feel the nipple burning hard in her palm. Denna's body was hers, even if Denna wasn't.

Now the other side; this time she bit down until she tasted blood, left it drooling down onto Denna's shoulder. Denna didn't make a sound. She still thought she was Mord'Sith.

The blood had only whetted Cara's appetite. Denna still denied her the main course. Jaw set, Cara tore Denna away from the wall, her skin sticking slightly to the cold stone. Flung the madame to the floor and set upon her, pinning her down on her belly, grinding her face into the fine carpet. Cara set her knees to keep Denna down, tugged her dress over that splendid ass and cracked her hand down on its curve. Saw the slap reverberate up Denna's body and down her thighs, disappearing into her cunt. Wet. Brought a smile to Cara's face.

Denna didn't resist as Cara reset her knees. This time she forced Denna's legs apart, positioned herself so that her kneeling prevented Denna from closing them. Denna's slit gaped open, ready. Cara spat on the gloved fingers of her right hand, rubbing them together until the leather was wetly gleaming. She knew Denna heard, knew she'd take it as a mark of disrespect—coddling. Denna suffered in silence. She only barely made a noise when Cara reached under her and slid two fingers inside. Then, Denna grunted.

Denna was tight enough for even her to feel, and so wet that it seeped into Cara's glove, smeared on her fingers. Soon, Cara was pistoning her fingers in and out to see Denna's body betray her; her spine curling, her skin reddening, her hair seeming to frazzle of its own accord. It wasn't enough for Cara; not with the way she herself was rubbing her thighs together, trying to get any measure of friction with two layers of smooth leather in the way.

Her other hand she had on Denna's head, still rubbing it into the carpet like she was a dog that'd made a mess. She took it away and of course Denna stayed facedown like a discarded toy. Cara bit her glove and pulled until her hand ripped free. Her nails were short but sharp. She dug them into the back of Denna's neck, seeming more vulnerable than ever with all that hair in the way, and drew her claws down Denna's body. Five crimson lines on palely perfect flesh, sliding down like raindrops on a window. Cara licked her fingers, each in turn, and it wasn't enough.

She bent down as she added a third finger to Denna, stretching her out as the whore must be used to, and her tongue lapped at the small of Denna's back. Ran up between her shoulder blades as Cara's fingers went faster, rougher, bringing more pain than pleasure. Her tongue reached Denna's neck, tasted sweat there as well, and Cara dipped her head lower, next to Denna's, nuzzling her face as she added a fourth finger. She was close enough to kiss Denna, almost did, but the woman was a statue. Eyes closed, mouth upturned, the pleasure written all over her face but going nowhere. Not to her throat, not to her voice, not where Cara wanted it.

"You're not a Mord'Sith," Cara sneered into Denna's bared throat. "You're nothing. I have my Agiel. I have my leathers. I have my Lord Rahl and all you have is the memory of making a weakling girl submit to you. Come for me. Feel like a Mord'Sith again before you lose it all once more."

Denna's lips tightly shut, cutting off whatever answer was in the offing, but she couldn't resist her orgasm the same way. Somehow, Cara's fingers seemed wetter, Denna herself seemed tighter. Her body was not her own. It was Cara's, and Cara wished for it to climax. As always, Cara's orders were obeyed.

Denna's pursed lips finally opened, letting out no more than a breath, but that was enough for Cara to know she'd won. Bracing herself on the back she'd cut to ribbons, Cara pushed herself to her feet and observed her dripping glove. She licked the first two fingers clean. Denna tasted bitter. It wasn't much of a surprise.

Cara swept her pennies off the tabletop she'd dropped them on. Denna laid under her. Cara put her boot to the bitch's throat and held it there, her weight on her other foot. "Kiss it," she said stridently. "We both know you came too hard not to pay for it."

Denna's lips parted, only to laugh. "All that work, just to make me come. I think you've finally learned to serve your betters properly."

Cara stared at her. Not broken. She'd taken all of Cara's anger and violence, and it'd just made her stronger. It wasn't enough. Whatever rage had once made Cara powerful, it was no longer enough.

Cara walked away, Denna's sickly sweet laughter behind her. Her hand throbbed painfully as she tried to force it back into its glove.

She felt like she could cry.


	3. Chapter 3

The world was safe. Richard and Kahlan were married. Cara couldn't sleep.

She'd been restless for a while, but it wasn't until Zedd spoke to her that she actually stopped going to bed. It was after some silly argument with Kahlan—something about a handsome general whose eye Cara had caught. The Mother Confessor wanted Cara to be wooed like a common village girl. As if Cara could ever be that again.

Their words became heated, as they'd often seemed to since Kahlan became the Lady Rahl, and Cara finally stormed off to hunt something. Of course, Richard's new palace grounds were devoid of decent game.

When she got back, Zedd was waiting for a word with her. It was too much to hope that a spell had gone astray or a monster needed killing. No, he wanted to talk about her _feelings. _She was capable of having _feelings. _She could be almost normal.

Why she would want to be he never explained. He just told her about Dahlia. He thought Cara had been in love with Dahlia. And the horrible thing was that Cara didn't know if he was wrong.

More of her life stolen. Darken Rahl had taken his piece and now the Seeker had his own.

From then on, Cara slept when she sat to rest her feet, her body forcing it on her. Didn't let her remember her dreams. When she woke up, she almost had Dahlia's face. It hung around her like smoke. Not letting her breathe.

Zedd felt a pointless sort of guilt over how he'd robbed Cara. Only this time it proved useful. When Cara asked that he find Dahlia for her, for once he didn't quibble. He just made his fancy gestures and intoned his ostentatious words, and gave Cara a map with a spot burned into it.

As luck would have it, the new palace was leagues closer to it than the old People's Palace had been. It was three days' ride. On the last, Cara changed into leather trousers and a woolen tunic. They were still highly unusual garments for a woman to wear, but were nowhere near as intimidating as a Mord'Sith's leathers. The most important thing was that they were easy to move in and protection enough from the casual damage of a fight.

And yet, staring at herself in the tiny mirror of the room at the inn, she struggled with her hair—whether it should be braided or let loose, if she should cut it or brush it or try to perform some of the strange alchemy that Kahlan used to make hers so beautiful. She ended up gathering it into a simple braid. Simpler to deal with during a fight.

Cara often thought of fate as a predator. The next day she was proved right. Fate hunted you from the moment you were born, fitting you to a dead destiny. You tried to outsmart it, outmaneuver it, but it always made the kill at the end. Like some predators did, it had played dead by putting Dahlia so near. It had let Cara get in close before it struck. And now Cara felt its hot breath on her neck. She saw Dahlia, a woman grown—with children of her own, with a husband, a cottage, a worn dress still lovingly maintained and kept clean.

Zedd had told her that in the other world, she'd been a widow with children of her own. She'd thought that Cara must be a shade of herself—living under the crippling burden of her unrealized potential. She'd thought it would be better to be dead than to live outside her supremacy. But Dahlia didn't look like she was ruing her lost prowess. She did not shy away from her children, she did not stoically bear her loving husband.

Even now, Cara did not want that life. But she would've liked to be capable of it.

She was very good at going without being seen. Dahlia certainly didn't. She never noticed Cara at all as the Mord'Sith passed her house by, went to the village tavern, and dropped her coins before the bartender like offerings to a small god. When the bartender looked up, Cara recognized Denna's soul first—then her eyes, her face, her hair even outside its white-knuckle tight braid. Her dress was loose and immodest, her skin was tanned from the open sun, her make-up made her almost another person from the severe mistress she had been. But it was her. As sure as Dahlia was Dahlia and Cara was Cara.

"Fancy meeting you here," Cara said, feeling the burn of her Agiel where it was wrapped around her thigh, but not reaching for it. Not yet. "Well. _Denna_." She relished saying the name. So much simpler than Dahlia's, so empty in comparison. "I'm not sure whether you've gone up or down in the world. On the one hand, this establishment seems to have far less whores than your last one. On the other, your dress isn't nearly as stylish."

"Cara." Denna was in no mood, her words flavorless. Unusual, Cara mused. Even more than herself, Denna was invulnerable to the outside world's ebb and flows, its emotions, its toxins. She was too Mord'Sith for her circumstances to define her. "Come to kill me? At last?"

"I thought I already did. What was the point in defeating the Keeper if the people I kill don't stay dead?"

"You want to know how I survived?"

"I'd like a bottle of blood mead, actually."

Denna poured for her. Even gave her a clean glass. "It's true. The fall—not to mention the arrow you so helpfully inserted halfway through my body—killed me."

Cara toasted her. "I did work hard at that."

"Thankfully, as you well know, Darken Rahl was there in the Underworld to give me a warm welcome. He was even kind enough to let me taste the hellfire. It's a singular pain, Cara. A shame that with your redemption, you'll never get a chance to try it."

"I'm sure the Good Spirits will let me roast for a little while before I return to protecting Lord Rahl." Kahlan had assured Cara her soul was in no danger of damnation, which led to the more worrying prospect that she would end up in the heavens with the many she had killed, the many that had died beside her, and numerous other people she was not eager to reunite with. The only consolation was that she would be able to continue serving Richard. And if anyone could get into trouble in the afterlife, it was him. "So you became a Baneling."

"Oh yes. I found a nearby village that was quite willing to accept a beautiful young woman who knew how to show her gratitude. And fortunately, there was a local group of raiders making life difficult for everyone. I picked them off one by one, and found some of the more unsavory citizens about town to sacrifice to my old master. I lasted until the Rift closed, and my life truly was returned to me."

Cara had drained her drink while Denna spoke. The bartender refilled it.

"It does something to you, no longer killing to follow orders, but to fit some moral code. I figured I was still serving the Lord Rahl by removing those people who had no place in a civilized world. I'm aware the Mord'Sith preyed upon the weak, but we did it to make them strong. Those who just made the weak _break_—those I hunted. And soon, I came to wonder… if I met myself, by some quirk of magic, would I fit my own criteria? Would I kill that woman?"

"Skip to the end," Cara said, not drinking, but merely observing the moodily dark liquid in her glass. "How come you have a bar?"

"The bartender left it to me when he no longer needed it. The least he could do, really. He died doing what he loved: me."

"You didn't give him the breath of life?"

"What possible end could've been happier for him than that one?"

Cara pushed her glass toward Denna. "I hate drinking alone."

For once, Denna took orders from her. She drank. Knocked it back like it was water.

There was an intimacy that came from being a Mord'Sith. An alikeness that came with every inch of skin covered in the same leather. No matter how many of her sisters she had killed, how many D'Harans had died, which Rahl she served, it endured.

So the question came easily, and Cara expected an answer as surely as she expected the kick when she took a drink. "Why?"

"Before you so rudely interrupted my life, Zedd was telling me about how I could use my second chance at life to be…" Denna gestured around, somehow indicating the lack of Agiels, leathers, slaves. "I decided I'd try that with my third life."

"No good comes of listening to wizards. I could've told you that."

"I'm content here," Denna said. "No power. No orders. No jockeying. I'm still a hunter, but the prey is much easier. So long as I remember to only take enough to feed me."

"Hard for a glutton like you," Cara taunted.

"Getting easier every day," Denna countered.

The mead disappeared between them like they were doing a magic trick. The village was having some sort of harvest festival tomorrow, so it emptied quickly save for a sleeping drunk in the corner. He snored musically as Denna produced a new bottle. Red wine now. Cara told her what had become of Richard, Kahlan, and the others. Denna seemed keenly interested in Richard, as concerned as a family member. She was especially intrigued by his deepening relationship with Kahlan. Cara was glad for her. If that was what she got off on, there'd be no shortage.

Cara stopped talking shortly after the Rift was sealed. She didn't go into the cause that had brought her to Denna's door. Instead, she finished off the port with a draught and gestured for more. Denna refused, her hands flat on the bar.

"Why are you here, Cara?" She sounded weary, of all things. Her usual sneer was absent from her face, let alone her voice.

"Do you remember a woman named Dahlia?"

Denna shook her head.

"Neither do I." Cara stared at a bottle behind the bar. She could see the rest of her night like a dream on open eyes. She'd jump across the bar, she'd fight Denna until one of them couldn't stand, she'd drink until _she _almost couldn't stand, she'd find someone willing or not so unwilling and have her way… she'd be a Mord'Sith.

But she was something else now as well. Something equidistant from being normal as being Mord'Sith. As different, in its own way, as being a Seeker or a Confessor. She was the third point of the triangle—caught in-between two impossibilities.

"She was removed from my history by magic. Once, she was a sister of the Agiel. We were very close, so I'm told." Cara raised an eyebrow, as if to add a mocking 'in fact'. "Zedd said we were in love. I suppose he'd know better than I would. And now she's gone. Taking with her something I didn't know I could want."

"What _do _you want?" Denna asked.

"When I look at Richard and Kahlan, I don't want to hate them," Cara said it simply, without bile or rancor. A statement of fact as crisp and clean as any Mord'Sith blow. "You don't hate me, do you Denna?"

Denna toyed with her hair before she spoke, pulling it taut, almost into a braid. "I hated everyone when I was a Mord'Sith. Now—I don't have room for all of that anger. I can be numb. For some, I can even feel… it's very strange to me, Cara. I recognize they're good people. I didn't consider hurting them when the Keeper required it. And I find myself anticipating seeing them again. In a day, a week, a month. The longer they're gone from me, the more I need… whatever it is they have."

"I felt that way about my friends. Richard. Kahlan. The wizard." Cara drummed her fingers on the bar. The sound seemed nearly nonexistent without her gloves on. "There must be something more than just an absence of anger, or the quick summoning of it when they're in danger. Something that's still lost to me."

Denna's voice ticked up in volume, as if she were gripping an invisible Agiel. "We are Mord'Sith. We are not born, we are broken. There will always be things denied us. Things unworthy of us."

"Then I should go. You have no more to offer me than anywhere or anyone else."

"Don't!" And now Denna spoke quickly—vulnerably. Cara recognized what pleading sounded like. "You should know… you can rebuild a house after it's burnt down, but it will never look the same. And yet it provides shelter from the storm."

Cara now spoke with the same weariness Denna had. Her patience for Mord'Sith games, jockeying for the approval of Lord Rahl, a thousand sisters all trying to reign supreme—it was gone. "Tell me the truth, Denna. Just tell me the truth."

"I feel… regret for what I did to you. And now I feel sadness that you don't have anyone. Just like I don't have anyone. But we are Mord'Sith. We will endure."

Cara looked at Denna's hands. They were still flattened upon the scarred wood of the bar. They'd been there all along.

She moved without caution, took without asking, putting her hand atop Denna's. Hers looked so pale outside its leather confines, when Denna's was brown.

"We will endure," Cara repeated, feeling for the first time the warmth of Denna's skin.

All Mord'Sith had lost something. Normal lives, normal families, normal womanhood. They especially had lost the Order; they alone didn't have the fanatical devotion of Lord Rahl to shield them from the empty scars within. But Cara now had an idea what else she had lost. What it was like to have a comrade who was closer to you than to the Agiel. Someone who understood and sympathized.

It felt good.

When the moon rose, she would sleep in one of Denna's cramped rooms and sleep well. When morning came, she would ride back to her Lord Rahl and her Lady Rahl, to see what new terrors they needed her to save them from.

And when this feeling came again—this song of loss and loneliness that she heard within herself—she would return to Denna. She would drink and talk, see understanding opposite her instead of confusion and fright.

It would not, she knew, be whatever she had had with Dahlia, or what Richard had with Kahlan. But something inside told her it would be enough.


End file.
